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February 2006

February 28, 2006

Sometimes life gives you a nice present, like a person in the news who would make a great character. The one I noticed in the news today is a female flight attendant on Virgin Atlantic. The plane was going from London to Las Vegas when it encountered heavy turbulence. Her response was to shout at the top of her voice, "We're going to crash!"

Three times.

Needless to say, this caused considerable concern among the 451 passengers. Fortunately the plane landed safely.

I don't know about you, but to me she sounds like a great comic character for a novel or short story. One for the notebook, for future employment (just like the real person, who probably will be looking for a new job soon...).

February 27, 2006

There are all kinds of tips and techniques for how to have more time to write (my new ebook, Time Management for Writers, will be available soon via timetowrite.com)--but sometimes you have to take a step back and ask The Big Question.

The Big Question is this: Does the way you spend your time reflect your professed goal? In other words, if your cherished goal is to write a novel or screenplay, for example, how much time are you actually spending on that? If not much (or none), why? You may reply, "I just have too many other things to do." But that means that every one of those things is more important to you than your writing goal! Is that really true? Is watching TV more important? Is keeping your flat spotless more important? Apply this question to every major activity you do, and I suspect you'll find a few things that you can drop or at least spend less time on.

February 24, 2006

One use for Google that you might not have thought of or heard about is as a source of inspiration when you get stuck for ideas.

The key is to use the "image" option that shows up when you log in to google.com.

For example, let's say you're writing a short story or a film script scene that takes place in a hospital. The problem is that everything you're coming up with seems too familiar or cliched. Type "hospital" or "medical" or "doctors" into the search field, then click on "image." Hundreds or even thousands of images will pop up.

As you glance at these images, consider what new ideas they give you about your characters, setting, or situation. It's a quick way to get maximum stimulation!(I imagine the same process could help in just about any kind of brainstorming).

February 23, 2006

According to the Times, the other surviving members of the Monty Python group were reluctant to let Eric Idle use their material for his hit "Spamalot" musical--until he gave them a sample. He said, "That was the hardest thing--to persuade them that this was something that would go well. We played them the song, 'The Song That Goes Like This,' and they cracked up. That was the secret of it." (Now the show is a hit on Broadway and will open in London later this year.)

Sometimes giving a little sample is a good idea. At times in the past when someone has asked for just a short outline of a script, I've also given them a sample page from the script itself, to give a better flavor of the dialogue or tone of the piece (especially helpful with comedy, which is very hard to get across in an outline!).

One of the best true stories I've read about your passion paying off was about a woman who, a few years ago, created a beautiful animated Christmas card for a friend of hers. She emailed it and then went on vacation for three weeks.
When she returned, she had 1600 e-mails in her in-box. Her friend had passed it on to other friends, who also passed it on, and so on. Her email address was on the card, and now all these people wanted to know whether she had other cards. She decided to turn it into a business.
The deal is that you pay her $8 per year, in exchange for which you get to send as many of her cards as you want (she now has about 65 different designs). She has over 250,000 subscribers. Done the math yet? That's two million dollars a year!
The best part of the story, for me, is that it all started with something she did for the love of it.

February 21, 2006

Here is a great site for any writer who wants to get a sense of the voices of real people talking about aspects of their lives: www.storycorps.net. It features people talking to each other about their lives--some items are light or nostalgic, some are so tragic that even these little segments bring tears to your eyes. Two that I found especially compelling are the two prisoners (one of whom died not long after doing this talk) and the woman who had to tell her parents about the death of her sister in a subway accident.

Welcome to the Time to Write blog, sister (brother?) to the www.timetowrite.com website. Here, as there, my hope is to help you either get started writing, or to increase the enjoyment of the writing you already do. One of the main themes, as the title suggests, is making the time to write. As a full-time writer, I'm making this journey as well. It always amuses me when a non-writer asks, "Where do you get all your ideas?" The problem, as writers know, is never the ideas--it's finding the time to turn them all into books, scripts, stories, or whatever else they want to be. Anyway, let's enjoy that journey together.